Topic
Music Industry Careers
Working in the music business: careers, young professionals, freelancing and mental health. 12 conversations with founders, investors and experts, newest first.
Episodes (12)
Jenna LoMonaco, head of US marketing at ONErpm, explains how she turns a viral moment into a lasting artist career and why consistent branding builds fans.
Adam Fine, head of music and audio at Fiverr, explains how AI tools and remote freelance work are reshaping music production careers.
Ryan Schmidt of Foundation explains why artists need business knowledge alongside talent, and how two-to-five-minute lessons help close that gap.
Daniel Nordgård, professor of music industry management, explains why he is optimistic about streaming, AI generated music and artist careers.
Thais Ruiz de Alda
Thais Ruiz de Alda of Digital Femmes explains why music metadata never captured gender, and how that gap skews streaming recommendations toward men.
Christine Osazuwa, founder of Measure of Music, explains why the music industry lacks a career meritocracy and how investing in talent could fix it.
Christopher Wieduwilt, the AI Musicpreneur, explains how musicians can use AI tools to automate content, amplify storytelling, and build new revenue streams.
Sania Haq, founder of Brighter Stereotypes, explains why South Asian artists remain underrepresented despite a growing global audience.
Christiana Sudano, founder of Do Less Management, explains how she connects Nordic artists to LA and Nashville and why managers now handle artist development.
Caroline Ravn, a young music industry professional in Copenhagen, explains why founders stay CEO too long and how young talent gets trapped.
Jakob Løkkegaard, co-founder of W.A.S. Entertainment, explains how the artist management firm survived years of unpaid founders before selling a Sony stake.
Jonas Krossli & Kristian Wredstrøm
Timbre co-founders Kristian Wredstrøm and Jonas Krossli look back on their failed music IP investing platform and what it cost to lack industry standing.
Questions these episodes answer
How did Jenna LoMonaco help break Shawn Mendes?
She says his campaign worked because he already had a rabid fan base, so her team built everything around getting those fans involved rather than following a generic playbook, and she cautions this approach cannot be copied for an artist without that kind of existing fan intensity.
From: Building a Music Career Fans Can Emotionally Invest In
How proactive versus reactive is artist marketing?
LoMonaco says it comes out to roughly fifty-fifty: an artist needs a proactive plan and steady groundwork, but also needs to recognize a rare spark, like an organic celebrity co-sign or sync placement, and move fast, because these moments are rare and unrepeatable if missed.
From: Building a Music Career Fans Can Emotionally Invest In
Why is YouTube still valuable for artist marketing?
LoMonaco calls YouTube a wildly underrated platform, noting it is literally how Shawn Mendes broke through, and says people building marketing strategies today often forget how much success is still available there compared with newer short-form apps.
From: Building a Music Career Fans Can Emotionally Invest In
How does ONErpm's deal structure differ from a major label?
Services are offered on an a la carte or full-team basis, priced through splits and licensing periods rather than a standard label contract, so an artist can choose just DSP and advertising help or bring on the whole team depending on what they already handle themselves.
From: Building a Music Career Fans Can Emotionally Invest In
How does Jenna LoMonaco think artists should balance novelty and consistency?
She says the amount of novelty is up to the artist to decide for each phase of a career, since musicians can reinvent themselves release to release the way Taylor Swift does, while still keeping fans engaged through recognizable branding and consistent messaging within each era.
From: Building a Music Career Fans Can Emotionally Invest In
How has the quality of talent on Fiverr changed for music production?
Adam Fine says Fiverr's music talent has shifted from budget beginners to a mix that includes Grammy nominated producers and audio engineers who work with major artists. He says this became especially noticeable during COVID, when many working musicians joined the platform to diversify their income, and the trend has kept growing since.
Can freelancers really build a full career on Fiverr?
Fine says yes, pointing to Fiverr's own million-dollar freelancers, including an audio engineer from Miami who has worked with Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland and completed thousands of orders on the platform. He says the common thread among these success stories is that they diversify across services and revenue streams instead of relying on one type of work.
Will AI tools like Suno replace musicians and producers?
Fine compares the moment to when Instagram turned smartphone owners into photographers, saying AI is lowering the barrier to making music but has not replaced real musicians yet. He says Fiverr already sees people start a song on Suno, then hire real musicians and producers to take that idea further.
What skills will matter most for music creators in the future?
Fine says success will increasingly depend on having a clear creative vision and being a tastemaker or curator, rather than only technical skill on an instrument. As AI makes production easier for more people, he expects people who can direct a project's sound, style and story to stand out most.
What is the biggest knowledge gap that hurts independent artists?
Schmidt says it's not any single bad deal but a general lack of business knowledge, since many artists assume they can hand full responsibility for understanding contracts and royalties to a manager, label or lawyer, which leaves them unable to catch problems in their own deals.
What's the biggest misconception artists have about signing a record deal?
Schmidt says many artists think signing a deal means the label will do all the work from there, when really the day you sign is just the day you enter the major leagues and have to work harder than ever, since you're still the one steering your own career.
How does Foundation fit music business lessons around an artist's schedule?
The app is built as two to five minute lessons an artist can take between takes at a recording session, so learning the business does not compete with time spent actually making music, and Schmidt says there is no end point since the industry keeps changing.